Socks

The Brickers’ house is the main setting of Socks, and it symbolizes The Search for Belonging Amid Shifting Familial Dynamics. The house itself is a location, but the shifting atmosphere within determines whether it is simply a house or also a home at different points in the story. When Socks is first adopted by the Brickers, the house is a home for him because he feels cared for and loved by the Brickers. However, once Charles William is born, the house seems less and less like a home to Socks because his feelings of neglect and abandonment keep him from believing he belongs with the Brickers. In this way, Bill and Marilyn are part of the structure of their home because their attitudes inform the difference between house and home. The united front Bill and Marilyn put forth in terms of raising Charles William and deciding Socks’s role in the house makes the couple a barrier to belonging. 

When Socks is injured in Chapter 6, Bill and Marilyn’s barrier starts to crumble. Understanding the role they played in Socks’s feelings of abandonment allows them to take responsibility for their house not being a home that is welcoming to him.